Google’s top executive earned a substantial sum last year. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, received nearly $226 million in 2022, according to a recent filing from Alphabet.
The bulk of Pichai’s compensation came from stock holdings, which were valued at over $218 million. Additionally, he received a $2 million base salary and more than $5 million for private security services.
This marks a significant increase for Pichai, who earned just over $6 million in 2021 and $7.4 million in 2020. Pichai’s stock compensation is awarded every three years; in 2019, he received a comparable package valued at $281 million.
Meanwhile, Alphabet’s stock declined by 39% in 2022 amid a broader tech and market downturn. However, shares have rebounded this year, increasing by approximately 19.5% since January.
Other top executives also received substantial paychecks in 2022, though none approached Pichai’s total.
Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president of knowledge and information, and Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, each earned $37 million. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat and Kent Walker, the chief legal officer, both made around $24.5 million.
In January, Alphabet announced a reduction of 12,000 jobs, representing a 6% cut in its total workforce. The median compensation for an Alphabet employee is just under $280,000, making Pichai’s salary more than 800 times greater.
For comparison, someone earning the $15.50 minimum wage in California, where Alphabet is headquartered, would need to work 14.6 million hours, or just over 7,000 years (assuming 40-hour work weeks with no time off), to match Pichai’s 2022 earnings.
The rise in CEO compensation has been a contentious issue in recent years.
According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, executive pay has surged by 1460% since 1978, with over 80% of this compensation typically consisting of stock-related earnings.
“This escalation of CEO and executive compensation has contributed to the growth of top 1% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving fewer economic gains for ordinary workers and widening the gap between high earners and the bottom 90%,” analysts at the institute wrote.
“The economy would suffer no harm if CEOs were paid less (or taxed more).”
Apple CEO Tim Cook responded to shareholder criticism by reducing his 2023 pay by 40%, after receiving $100 million in both 2022 and 2021.
The majority of Cook’s 2022 compensation—approximately 75%—was tied to company shares, with half of it contingent on share price performance.
Shareholders voted against Cook’s pay package following a nearly 27% decline in Apple’s stock last year. While the vote was nonbinding, the board’s compensation committee noted that Cook had requested the reduction.
“The compensation committee balanced shareholder feedback, Apple’s exceptional performance, and Mr. Cook’s request to adjust his compensation in response to the feedback received,” the company stated in its annual proxy statement released on Thursday.
